Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for changing display order of partial areas of a page image in a system that displays the partial areas in order.
Description of the Related Art
Materials used for a presentation given in a conference room or product explanation in face-to-face sales are typically displayed page by page on an image display apparatus for explanation, each single page image (slide) constituting the materials. Depending on the composition of the materials, some slides may be difficult for the audience to understand where the speaker is explaining. The audience may get bored if the same slide continues to be displayed and described for a long time without a change.
Some image display methods display a page image in consideration of a small screen of a mobile terminal such as a smartphone. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-170638 discusses an image display method for automatically analyzing partial areas of a page image according to document components such as characters and figures included in the page image. Each of the automatically-analyzed partial areas can be displayed at an enlargement factor of the corresponding partial area, adjusted to the small screen of the mobile terminal, with a simple operation such as a button tap.
A mobile terminal discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-170638 is connected to a projector, and the projector projects images displayed on the mobile terminal for presentation. In such a case, each of the partial areas recognized in advance can be displayed in order at an enlargement factor for the corresponding partial area, so that the audience can easily understand where on the slide the speaker is explaining. As the partial areas are explained in order, the projected images also change in succession, which prevents the audience from getting bored.
According to the foregoing conventional technique, the partial areas of a page image are displayed in the automatically-analyzed order.
For example, in the case of giving a presentation or explaining a product, the speaker may wish to flexibly select explanation contents or change the order of explanation according to the audience to give the best explanation to the audience, not just giving the same explanation in the same order every time. Such a demand, however, has been difficult to meet.
Specifically, to check the display order of partial areas of a page image, the partial areas have needed to be actually enlarged and displayed in order. The display order of all the partial areas in a page image has therefore not been able to be wholly comprehended, and the partial areas of which the user wishes to change the display order could not have been identified.
According to the foregoing conventional technique, intuitive operations for changing the display order of partial areas from a mobile terminal such as a smartphone and a tablet have not been provided.